Part 24

After these scenes, we find her in a cottage, at Taplow—at this time a grown-up lady—looking over a garden of honeysuckles, lilies, and roses, making excursions to Windsor, to Gray’s Lawn at Stoke Poges, to Burke’s at Beaconsfield, and to the College at Chalfont, where Milton found a refuge during the plague. We always associate Miss Mitford with cottages. We cannot imagine her living in a slated house, three stories high, with a carriage sweep, and steps up to the door—we cannot suffer her in our imagination to have any of the comforts and solidity of a well-built mansion about her; it must be a cottage, with its ivy creepers, its portico and latticed windows, and everything round it looking as green and rural as a wilderness of trees and shrubs, growing up luxuriantly in a warm, languid climate can make it. In short, we must smother her in flowers, or she is not the Miss Mitford that we know so well in the pastoral books she has written.

Turning from the autobiographical passages which form so interesting a part of these volumes, there are a variety of literary sketches of an equally attractive kind. Miss Mitford runs over a wide field of books and recollections; and from her extensive acquaintance with literary people, and the desultory character of her reading, she supplies an abundant store of anecdote and remark.

The following is new, and certainly very curious. The scene is an old, wooden, picturesque house, at Cambridge, in America, once the head quarters of Washington, but now the residence of Longfellow, the poet.

“One night the poet chanced to look out of his window, and saw by the vague starlight a figure riding slowly past the mansion. The face could not be distinguished; but the tall, erect person, the cocked hat, the traditional costume, the often-described white horse, all were present. Slowly he paced before the house, and then returned, and then again passed by, after which, neither horse nor rider were seen or heard of.”

Miss Mitford does not give us any authority for this anecdote; but the collectors of ghost stories are not very particular about authorities, and will be content to take it upon her own, as we do.

There is a sketch of Elizabeth Barrett, and a little biography attached to it, which will be read with interest. Miss Mitford’s acquaintance with her commenced fifteen years ago.

“Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face large, tender eyes richly fringed by dark eye-lashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the translator of the ‘Prometheus of Æschylus,’ the authoress of the ‘Essay on Mind,’ was old enough to be introduced into company, or, in technical language, was _out_.”

It was in the following year that Miss Barrett broke a blood-vessel in the lungs, which consigned her to a long illness, during which she lost a favorite brother by one of those melancholy accidents which leave ineffaceable memories in the hearts of the survivors. He was drowned, with two companions, in sight of her windows at Torquay, whither she was ordered for change of air. This tragedy nearly killed her; and more than a year afterward, when she was removed to London by easy journeys, she told Miss Mitford that, “during that whole winter, the sound of the waves rang in her ears like the moans of one dying.”

William Cobbett was one of the notabilities to whom Miss Mitford was introduced by her father, whose intimacy with him was brought about through their mutual attachment to field sports. She describes him in his own house as a man of unfailing good humor and great heartiness; tall, stout and athletic, with a bright smile, and an air compounded of the soldier and the farmer, to which his habitual red waistcoat contributed not a little. His activity was something to be remembered, for he would begin the day by mowing his own lawn, a laborious pastime in which he beat his gardener, who was esteemed, except himself, the best mower in the parish.

Upon one occasion, Dr. Mitford and his daughter were invited to Cobbett’s to meet the wife and daughters of a certain Dr. Blamire; and as it appeared that Dr. Mitford had formerly flirted with Mrs. Blamire, some amusement was expected from seeing how they would meet after a lapse of twenty years, both of them having shaken off the old _liaison_, and married in the meanwhile.

“The most diverting part of this scene, very amusing to a bystander, was, that my father, the only real culprit, was the only person who throughout maintained the appearance and demeanor of the most unconscious innocence. He complimented Mrs. Blamire on her daughters—two very fine girls—inquired after his old friend, the doctor, and laughed and talked over by-gone stories with the one lady, just as if he had not jilted her, and played the kind and attentive husband to the other, just as if he had never in all his days made love to anybody except his own dear wife.”

Formerly, we frequently met with physicians who belonged to this class, and who were indebted for their professional success mainly to their social tactics and invincible pleasantry; but although you still occasionally fall in with a medical man who considers it as necessary to cultivate popularity amongst ladies as to attend to the practice of his art, the age of the flirt-physicians, we are happy to believe, has passed away.

Miss Mitford’s literary “recollections” bear rather more upon books than upon the authors of them. The book-gossip to which she invites us, traverses a considerable round of poets, novelists, and miscellaneous writers, and the specimens of their works over which she lingers with delight, make a body of extracts which enhance the value and variety of the publication. Her notes upon these selected passages discover a geniality and earnestness which will be grateful even to the reader who may sometimes have occasion to think that her praise is a little in excess, or who may doubt the judgment that has been shown in particular selections.

This tendency to a good-natured estimate of her favorite authors, shows itself most conspicuously in her admiration of certain poets, whose merits the world has not hitherto rated so highly. We are not sorry, nevertheless, to meet snatches of such people as Mr. Spencer and Miss Catharine Fanshawe—whose chief claim to notice is, that she was the author of the Enigma on the letter H, which used to be ascribed to Byron—for, except through the flattering medium of books like these, we are not very likely to see the _vers de société_ that were in such request some fifty years ago, disinterred for our special delectation. They are abundantly curious, and discover a certain verbal facility and gayety of the thinnest and airiest kind, which will at least amuse, if not instruct the reader, by setting him thinking of the extinct modes and tastes to which they were addressed, and out of which they extracted their fugitive popularity. But poetasters of this order, however cheerfully and successfully they help to shed a grace on private life, and to give a sort of intellectual vivacity to social intercourse, can never be made to survive their hour in print. They must perish with the occasion that gave them birth; and you might as well hope to procure for the acted charade, if it were taken down in short-hand and published, the same success in the closet that it received on its impromptu delivery, as to procure for the graceful trifles thrown off for the amusement of a _coterie_, the honors of a permanent place in the library. They never aimed at such a destiny, and can never achieve it; and it may be doubted whether their fragile existence should be risked in print at all.

Of all the neglected, forgotten, or unknown books Miss Mitford has brought to life again, the Autobiography of Holcroft is the most deserving of resuscitation. We know no memoir of its kind—excepting the only one forbidden book in French literature—that possesses its charm of frankness, truthfulness of detail, and quiet development of character. Unfortunately it is nothing more than a fragment, consisting of seventeen chapters, dictated by Holcroft—a prolific author and translator—in his last illness; stopping short at an interesting point in his career, and furnishing such evidences of clear-sighted judgment, and happy skill in relation and portraiture, as to leave an indelible regret upon the mind of the reader at finding himself cast upon the grander diction of Hazlitt for the continuation of the narrative. The contrast is painful. The brilliancy and paradoxical genius of Hazlitt, rendered him of all men the most unfit to follow up the unpretending strength and simplicity of Holcroft; and the transition is something like being transported from the fresh air and pastoral beauty of a natural landscape into a severe Italian garden. There was but one point in common between them—and that was the most contracted and least characteristic of all—their agreement in politics. Holcroft was a man of larger powers, and a wider range of tastes than might be predicated from that party martyrdom which gave him so distressing a notoriety in the latter days of his life, to the partial eclipse of his literary reputation. But the subject is not likely to be revived now, nor would it repay the labors of a more competent editor. Miss Mitford, however, has done well in drawing attention to Holcroft’s book, and the extracts she has given from it will be read with interest; but it is only from the memoir itself, as a whole, tracing the course of the self-educated boy from his origin upward, that an adequate notion can be formed of the enthralling charm of that singular narrative.

We have exceeded our limits. A gossip, intended to occupy only five minutes or so, has already run over the brim of the measure which we proposed to fill up to the health of Miss Mitford. It is not the first time she has tempted us into an excess of this kind; but, if the reader will open her volumes over the fireside as we have done, we are mistaken if he do not find quite as much difficulty as we do now in shutting them up and putting them down again.

[12] Recollections of a Literary Life; or Books, Places, and People. By Mary Russell Mitford, Author of “Our Village,” etc. 3 vols.

* * * * *

THE BLACK HUNTSMAN.

HORACE W. SMITH.

Loud blew the wind at the midnight hour, With many a wintry blast, Which fairly shook old Rodenstine’s tower, As the Wild Black Huntsman passed.

The deer he sprang from his leafy bed, As he heard the piercing sounds, And the oak boughs crashed to his antlered head, As he flew from the phantom hounds.

The rite of the holy monk was stayed, And he trembling dropped his beads, As he heard the tramp through the forest glades And the neigh of the goblin steeds.

From the revellers hand the wine-cup fell, At the forester’s festive board; And a sudden charm came o’er the spell Of the minstrels tuneful chord.

The old oak shook in its ancient hold, The abbey bell tolled to the blast; And the cloud and the tempest onward rolled, As the Wild Black Huntsman passed.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE TWO ISABELS;

OR COQUETISH SEVENTEEN.

[with a steel plate.]

BY MRS. S. C. HALL.

Oh love, love, love, love!—love is like a dizziness, It will not let a poor man go about his business. Old Song.

And are those follies going, And is my proud heart growing Too cold, or wise, for woman’s eyes Again to set it glowing? Moore.

The General put on his spectacles, and looked steadfastly at Isabel for at least two minutes. “Turn your head,” he said, at last—“there, to the left.”

Isabel Montford, although an acknowledged beauty, was as amiable as she was admired; she had also a keen appreciation of character; and, though somewhat piqued, was amused by the oddity of her aunt’s old lover. The General was a fine example of the well-preserved person and manners of the past century; beauty always recognizes beauty as a distinguished relative; and Isabel turned her head, to render it as attractive as it could be.

The General smiled, and after gazing for another minute with evident pleasure, he said—“Do me the favor to keep that attitude, and walk across the room.”

Isabella did so with much dignity; she certainly was exceedingly handsome;—her step light, but firm; her figure, admirably poised; her head, well and gracefully placed; her features, finely formed; her eyes and smile, bright and confiding. She would have been more captivating had her dress been less studied; her taste was evidently Parisien rather than classic. The gentleman muttered something, in which the words, “charming,” and “to be regretted,” only met her ear; then he spoke distinctly:

“You solicited my candor, young lady—you challenged comparison between you and your compeers, and the passing belles whom I have seen. Now, be so kind as to walk out of the room, re-enter, and curtsey.”

Had Isabel Montford been an uneducated young lady, she might have flounced out of the _salon_, in obedience to her displeasure, which was very decided; but as it was, she drew herself to her full height, and swept through the folding-doors. The General took a very large pinch of snuff. “That is so perfectly a copy of her poor aunt!” he murmured;—“just so would she pass onward, like a ruffled swan; she went after that exact fashion into the ante-room, when she refused me, for the fourth time, thirty-five years ago.”

The young Isabel re-entered, and curtseyed. The gentleman seated himself, leaned his clasped hands upon the head of his beautiful inlaid cane—which he carried rather for show than use—and said, “Young lady, you look a divinity! Your _tourneure_ is perfection; but your curtsey is frightful! A dip, a bob, a bend, a shuffle, a slide, a canter—neither dignified, graceful, nor self-possessed! A curtsey is in grace what an _adagio_ is in music;—only masters of the art can execute either the one or the other. Why, the beauty of the Duchess of Devonshire could not have saved her reputation as a graceful woman, if she had dared such a curtsey as that.”

“I assure you, sir,” remonstrated the offended Isabel, “that Madame Micheau——”

“What do I care for the woman!” exclaimed the General, indignantly. “Have I not memory?”

“Can you not teach me?” said Isabel, amused and interested by his earnestness.

“I teach you!—I! No; the curtseys which captivated thousands in my youth were more an inspiration than an art. The very queen of _ballet_, in the present day, cannot curtsey.”

“Could my aunt?” inquired Isabel, a little saucily.

“Your aunt, Miss Montford, was grace itself. Ah! there are no such women now a-days!”

And, after the not very flattering observation, the General moved to the piano. Isabel’s brows contracted and her cheeks flushed; however, she glanced at the looking-glass, was comforted, and smiled. He raised the cover, placed the seat with the grave gallantry of an old courtier, and invited the young lady to play. She obeyed, to do her justice, with prompt politeness; she was not without hope that _there_, at least, the old gentleman would confess she was triumphant. Her white hands, gemmed with jewels, flew over the keys like winged seraphs; they bewildered the eye by the rapidity of their movements. The instrument thundered, but the thunder was so continuous that _there was no echo_! “The contrast will come by-and-by,” thought the disciple of the old school—“there must be some shadow to throw up the lights.”

Thunder—crash—thunder—crash—drum—rattle—a confused, though eloquent, running backward and forward of sounds, the rings flashing like lightning! Another crash—louder—a great deal of crossing hands—violent strides from one end of the instrument to the other—prodigious displays of strength on the part of the fair performer—a terrific shake! “What desperate exertion!” thought the General; “and all to produce a soulless noise.” Then followed a fearful banditti of octaves—another crash, louder and more prolonged than the rest; and she looked up with a triumphant smile—a smile conveying the same idea as the pause of an opera-dancer after a most wonderful _pirouette_.

“Do you keep a tuner in the house, my dear young lady?” inquired the General.

If a look could have annihilated, he would have crumbled into ashes; but he only returned it with admiration, thinking, “How astonishingly like her aunt, when she refused me the second time!”

“And that is fashionable music, Miss Montford? I have lived so long out of England, only hearing the music of Beethoven, and Mozart, and Mendelssohn, I was not aware that noise was substituted for power, and that execution had banished expression. Dear me!—why, the piano is vibrating at this moment! Poor thing! How long does a piano last you, Miss Montford?”

Isabel was losing her temper, when fortunately her aunt—still Miss Vere—came to the rescue. The lovers of thirty years past, would have met any where else as strangers. The once rounded and queen-like form of the elder Isabel was shorn of its grace and beauty; of all her attributes, of all her attractions, dignity only remained; and it was that high-bred, innate dignity which can never be acquired, and is never forgotten. She had not lost the eighth of an inch of her height, and her gray hair was braided in full folds over her fair but wrinkled brow. Isabel Montford looked so exactly what Isabel Vere had been, that General Gordon was sorely perplexed; Isabel Vere, if truth must be told, had taken extra pains with her dress; her niece had met the General the night before, and her likeness to her aunt had so recalled the past, that his promised visit to his old sweetheart (as he still called her) had fluttered and agitated her more than she thought it possible an interview with _any man_ could do; she quarreled with her beautiful gray hair, she cast off her black velvet dress disdainfully, and put on a blue _Moire antique_. (She remembered how much the Captain—no, the General, once admired blue.) She was not a coquette; even gray hair at fifty-five does not cure coquetry where it has existed in all its strength; but, for the sake of her dear niece, she wished to look as well as possible. She wondered why she had so often refused “poor Gordon.” She had been all her life of too delicate a mind to be a husband-hunter, too well satisfied with her position to calculate how it could be improved, and yet, she did not hesitate to confess to herself that now, in the commencement of old age, however verdant it might be, she would have been happier, of more consequence, of more value, as a married woman. She had too much good sense, and good taste, to belong to the class of discontented females, consisting of husbandless and childless women, who seek to establish laws at war with the laws of the Almighty; so, if her heart did beat a little stiffly, and sundry passages passed through her brain in connection with her old adorer, and what the future might be—she may be forgiven, and will be, by those not strong-minded women who understand enough of the waywardness of human nature to know that, if _young_ heads and _old_ hearts are sometimes found together, so are young hearts and old heads. The young laugh to scorn the idea of Cupid and a crutch, but Cupid has strange vagaries, and at any moment can barb his crutch with the point of an arrow.

“The old people,” as Isabel Montford irreverently called them that evening, did not get on well together; they were in a great degree disappointed one with the other. They stood up to dance the _minuet de la cour_, and Isabel Vere languished and swam as she had never done before; but the General only wondered how stiff she had grown, and hoped that he was not as ill used by time as Mistress Isabel Vere had been. At first, Isabel Montford thought it “good fun” to see the antiquities bowing and curtseying, but she became interested in the lingering courtliness of the little scene, trembled lest her aunt should appear ridiculous, and then wondered how she could have refused such a man as General Gordon must have been.

Days and weeks flew fast; the General became a constant visitor in the square, and the heart of Isabel Vere had never beaten so loudly at twenty as it did at fifty-and-five; nothing, she thought, could be more natural than that the General should recall the days of his youth, and seek the friendship and companionship of her who had never married, while he—faithless man!—had been guilty of two wives during his “services in India.” It was impossible to tell which of the ladies he treated with the most attention. Isabel Montford took an especial delight in tormenting him, and he was cynical enough towards her at times. Although he frankly abused her piano-forte-playing, yet he evidently preferred it to the music Miss Vere practised so indefatigably to please him, or to the songs she sang, in a voice which from a high “soprano,” had been crushed by time into what might be considered a very singular “mezzo.” He somehow forgot how to find fault with Miss Montford’s dancing, and more than once became her partner in a quadrille. It was evident, that while the General was growing young, Miss Vere remained—“as she was!” Isabel Montford amused herself at his expense, but he did not—quick-sighted and man-of-the-world though he was—perceive it. At first he was remarkably fond of recalling and dating events, and dwelling upon the grace, and beauty, and interest, and advantage, of whatever was past and gone—much to the occasional pain of Isabel Vere, who, gentle-hearted as she was, would have consigned _dates_ to the bottomless pit; latterly, however, he talked a good deal more of the present than of the past, and, greatly to the annoyance of younger men, fell into the duties of escort to both ladies,—accompanying them to places of public promenade and amusement.

On such occasions, Miss Isabel Vere looked either earnest or bashful—yes, positively bashful; and Miss Isabel Montford, brimful of as much mischief as a lady could delight in. At times, the General laid aside his cynical observations, together with his cane, which was not even replaced by an umbrella; to confess the truth, he had experienced several symptoms of _heart disease_, which, though they made him restless and uncomfortable, brought hopes and aspirations of life, rather than fears of death.

One morning, Isabel Montford and the General were alone in the _salon_ where this little scene first opened:

“Our difference has never been settled yet,” she exclaimed, gaily; “you have never proved to me the superiority of the Old school over the New.”

“Simply because of your superiority to both,” he replied.

“I do not perceive the point of the answer,” said the young lady. “What has my superiority over _both_ to do with the question?”

The General arose and shut the door. “Do you think you could listen to me seriously for five minutes?” he said.

“Listening is always serious work,” she answered. He took her hand within his; she felt it was the hand of age; the bones and sinews pressed on her soft palm with an earnest pressure.

“Isabel Montford—could you love an old man?”

She raised her eyes to his, and wondered at the light which filled them:—

“Yes,” she answered, “I could love an old man dearly; I could confide to him the dearest secret of my heart.”